For years now, thousands of studies have linked rising sea levels to climate change.

But one Republican congressman had an alternate explanation he floated this week during a meeting of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology with leading climate scientist Philip Duffy. It doesn't implicate human behavior and wouldn't require pesky regulations on fossil fuels: Rocks. Lots of rocks, falling into the ocean.

"Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise," said Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), "because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up."

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"What about the white cliffs of Dover, California, where time and time again you're having the waves crash against the shorelines, and time and time again, you're having the cliffs crash into the sea?" he continued. "All that displaces water, which forces it to rise, does it not?"

Duffy was considerably less impressed.

"I'm pretty sure that on human time scales, those are minuscule effects," Duffy said of the impact of rockfalls and erosion on sea level rise.